The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles

the Biggest LIAR in Los Angeles a Hickey Family crime novel 1926 Ken Kuhlken

Praise for Ken and his novels \" . . . brings a great new character — and a fresh voice — into the mystery field.\" Novelist Tony Hillerman \"Kuhlken is an original, and in these days of cookie-cutter fiction, originality is something to be prized.\" San Diego Union Tribune \" . . . brings the social and cultural scene of the period vividly to life. \" Publisher's Weekly \" . . . a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed.\" Kirkus Reviews \" . . . takes readers into dark experiences and deep understandings that can't help but leave them changed.\" Novelist Michael Collins \"Kuhlken weaves a complex plot around a complex man, a weary hero who tries to maintain standards as all around him fall to temptation. \" Publisher's Weekly \" . . . a stunning combination of bad guys and angels, of fast-moving action and poignant, heartbreaking encounters.\" Novelist Wendy Hornsby \" . . . captures the history and atmosphere of the 1970s as well as the complex dynamics of a fascinating family.\" Booklist \" . . . a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed . . . Crime, punishment and redemption.\" Kirkus Reviews \" . . . fast-moving adventure, effectively combines mainstream historical fiction

with the conventions of the hard-boiled detective novel.\" Booklist \"A wonderful, literate, and very ambitious novel that does everything a good story should do. It surprises, delights, it jolts and makes you think .\" Novelist T. Jefferson Parker “ . . . a pleasure to read.” Novelist Anne Tyler \"Elegant, eloquent, and elegiac, Kuhlken's novels sing an old melody, at the same time haunting and beautiful.\" Novelist Don Winslow

Copyright © 2010, 2013, 2020 by Ken Kuhlken Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2009942190 ISBN: 9781005557126 BISAC: Fiction, Mystery and Detective, Historical FIC022060 Smashwords Edition Published by Hickey and McGee, 2020. Hickey & McGee 8697-C La Mesa Boulevard La Mesa, CA 91942 hickeybooks.com Originally published by Poisoned Pen Press, 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Thanks To Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald, to my writing pals Alan Russell, Gene Riehl, Ron Argo, Lynne Kennedy, Mark Clifton, Dave Knop, Maynard Kartvedt, Barbara Hopfinger, Barbara Gardner, and especially to Gary Phillips for help finding my way around old Los Angeles; to all the novelists who made me want to be one; to Jackie Miller of the Foursquare Heritage Center; and to the writers of history, including Kevin Starr, J. Eric Lynxwiler, Kevin Roderick, Ben Proctor, Dennis McDougal, Cecil M. Robeck, and Daniel Mark Epstein, who made my stay in 1926 Los Angeles so enchanting.

Contents: The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, page one The Good Know Nothing, a preview A Request The Hickey Family Crime Novels About the Author

For my Darcy, Cody, Zoe, and Nick — who bring me a world of joy.

THE BIGGEST LIAR IN LOS ANGELES

One TOM Hickey rented in a court near the intersection of Wilshire and Normandie, halfway between downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. He shared the cottage with his sixteen-year-old sister Florence. Almost six years ago, Tom had snatched her away from their mother, Millicent Hickey, a seamstress for Universal Pictures. He hadn’t spoken to Milly since the day he and Florence ran off with nothing but his clarinet and a suitcase of clothes between them. At first he believed their mother would track them down, have him arrested or beaten by a gang of her fellow spiritualists. But all these years, she had left him alone. He credited Leo Weiss for that blessing. When Tom was in fourth grade, Milly rented a two-bedroom bungalow on Orange between Highland and La Brea. The owners, who lived next door, were Violet Weiss and her Leo, a detective with the LAPD. At first, Leo and Vi appreciated Milly. She kept the house spotless, and her passion for gardening transformed the yard into a wild yet orderly scene reminiscent of Eden. But soon, Vi caught Milly whipping Tom with a rope while shouting in “tongues.” Leo warned her, politely, hoping to keep Tom and Florence next door where he and Vi could observe and react. Then Vi rescued Tom after Milly lashed him to a fence post in the back yard and left him while she ran errands. For that offense, Leo threatened jail next time. Milly moved them to Hollywood, several miles away. Tom snatched his sister when he was sixteen, Florence eleven. A few days afterward, he reported to Leo what his mother had done to the girl. Then Leo informed Milly that although minors running from their guardians was only a misdemeanor, torture was a felony that got rewarded by long prison terms. NOW, in 1926, before Tom was twenty-two, the other musicians in the dance

band he joined last year drafted him to lead, on account of his skill at arranging, though most of them were twice his age. Tonight the musicians roamed around the vacant storefront owned by Archie the drummers uncle, trading jokes and filling the room with a smoky blue haze. Tom hoped a high C would grab their attention. He lifted the clarinet to his lips. Then Oz came loping in. He carried the tattered case that protected his alto sax, and a fistful of leaflets. He shoved a leaflet at each of the boys. As Tom took his, Oz said, “None of you white folks go telling me the Klan don’t be here out west.” The leaflet was a broadside entitled The Forum. It declared: LYNCHING. We who ask to live in peace; who came to this City of Angels hoping to leave the terror behind; who judge no man without cause; who take only our meager share of the promise this nation affords to those unbound by color; who wish to believe that justice will someday prevail, must now pause to weep. On Monday, the 11th day of October, a gentleman who shall here go unnamed went out walking in Echo Park just as sunlight spilled over Angelino Heights. In the glare of dawn, a vision appeared. So terrible it was, the gentleman believed he had not risen but was in the throes of a nightmare. A dark man hung limp from the live oak not ten yards off Park Avenue, not fifty yards from Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's majestic temple. Before this heinous act, the \"Invisible Empire,\" resurrected by Mister D.W. Griffith's \"Birth of a Nation,\" would have us believe that in our locale they limit their hooded activities to preserving

the Good Book's values by smashing the furniture and windows of speakeasies, flogging the occasional adulterer, marching to protest the election of our first Negro assemblyman, and rallying voters to elect candidates opposed to unfettered growth. Now, with one act, despicable in both substance and symbolism, they have declared war against peace and decency. The test of a community lies not in the occurrence of sinister deeds. Evil will always live among us. No, the test of our mettle lies in our reaction to manifestations of evil. In the case of this deed, more vicious than simple murder because it targets the spirit of a people, we who seek truth, peace and justice must mourn to our depths more than the loss of an innocent. The implications of the lynching go so deep, they mock the very concept of justice. When public servants attempt to obliterate the truth, they shatter our dreams of a world that could be. Members of the Los Angeles Police Department carried off the body in such haste, only one early-rising gentleman witnessed the shameful deed. Let the reader judge: has the briefest account of this heinous crime appeared in the Times, the Herald, or the Examiner? To our knowledge, no publication but the Forum has risked offending the powerful by reporting the murder of Franklin Gaines. The floor beneath Tom rose and fell, as if another earthquake had struck, and worse than any earthquake he had known. He back-stepped and leaned against the brick wall. “Frank Gaines,” he muttered.

Two TOM would have gone directly from rehearsal to check on Florence. According to his rule, she was to walk straight home following her after-school job sweeping and ushering at the Egyptian Cinema in Hollywood. But the broadside changed Tom’s plans. He caught the streetcar on Pico, transferred to the coach line up Western and Wilshire and hustled the several blocks through the drizzle on slippery pavement to the neighborhood where he once lived. The Weiss home was a Craftsman bungalow with a low-pitched roof and a rock walled porch extending the width of the house. Leo came to the door in blue cotton pajamas, no robe. He rubbed his eyes and scratched his head through a tangled web of thinning hair. Though Tom hadn’t seen him in months, since early summer, he didn’t waste an instant on pleasantries. He gave Leo’s meaty hand a quick shake and said, “Who put a lid on the Echo Park lynching?” Leo peered at Tom as if to assure himself this was no impostor. He scratched his head again, then turned, took a couple steps inside, and flopped into a rose- patterned easy chair with doilies on the arms. “Sit down.” Tom entered and shut the door behind him. “Lynching?” From his hip pocket, Tom produced the Forum, which he tossed. Leo caught it, raised and held it close enough so he didn’t need his glasses. While he read, Tom watched for a reaction but saw the profile of a poker face. Leo folded the broadside in half and set it on the chair arm. He looked up and shrugged. “How about it?” Tom said. “Meaning you want to know did it happen?” “Meaning I know it happened. What I want is to know what you cops are going to do about it?”

Leo stared above, as though tracing the route of a crack that bisected the plaster ceiling. “What’s it to you?” Tom folded his hands to keep from shaking a fist. “Besides that a man’s dead, and no doubt a whole lot of colored folks are barricading their doors, and a murderer, or a gang of them, is on the loose?” “Yeah, besides all that,” Leo said. “See, last month a Chinese couple got robbed. The creep raped the gal and dumped both of them off the Santa Monica pier. You must’ve heard, but you didn’t come running to me.” “Frank Gaines was a pal of mine.” “Musician?” “An old pal,” Tom said. “Long ago, at the mission on Azusa Street, Frank used to take me down the block to the Arkansas Diner, all those times Milly couldn’t break away from the Holy Ghost long enough to feed us. Frank was a gentleman. Not a morsel of spite or bitterness in him. Good will toward everybody.” “1 see.” “Meaning you’re going to tell me who put the lid on?” “Who says I’m in the know?” “I’m asking, are you?” Leo shook his head. “Okay then, are you going to find out?” Leo drummed his fingers on the chair arms. “No.” “Oh,” Tom said. “Orders from Two Gun Davis?” The way Leo grimaced meant Tom had stepped out of bounds, which didn’t stop him. “You’re not a fan of his, are you?” “He’s my boss.” “Yeah, and I hear he’s trigger happy as Billy the Kid.” Leo said, “The city’s crawling with bad guys. Chief Davis is following the will of the people.” “Which people?”

“Most of them. Listen, back when you belonged to Milly, in one year, more than a hundred of us cops got killed. Maybe you recall?” “So?” “So when Davis sends the message about the crook you fail to kill tonight could be the one kills you tomorrow, we’ve got reason to heed his warning.” “And to follow his orders, even if he tells you to cover up a lynching?” “Some would do just that.” Leo waved the Forum. “According to this, police were involved.” Leo stood and plodded toward the kitchen. As he passed a small marble topped table with a chessboard laid out, a game interrupted in progress, he slid the Forum under the edge of the chessboard. “Tom, I work for the city of Los Angeles. I don’t run it. That’s other men’s job.” Tom had followed, a footstep behind. He said, “And if you get uppity about it, you’ll soon be out selling cutlery door to door. I’m aware of that. I’m no freshman. The thing is, as you have told me on more than one occasion, every man’s got to choose sides. If you side with the rats just because they run the city, it’ll prove you’re not the guy I believed you were.” Tom choked down the lump in his throat. He wanted to say, And that would break my heart. But a look at Leo’s eyes told him he’d said enough. They stood nose to nose. “You sound mighty righteous, boy.” The word “boy” pinched a nerve. He couldn’t remember Leo ever calling him boy. He leaned on a wall and ordered himself to act civil. “Back when I was a churchgoing youngster, Frank Gaines and some other good folks pounded into my head I should do what the churchgoers say, not what they do.” “And what do they say?” “Seek the truth, for one thing.” A smile broke slowly out of Leo’s stony face. “And where would you go to start seeking?” Tom gave up the wall and stood straight. “Angelus Temple.” “Why’s that?” “Frank was lynched not fifty yards from the place, and I’ll bet plenty of his

brothers and sisters from Azusa Street are among Sister Aimee’s flock. I could give you a few names. You can start there.” “I’m not going to start anywhere, Tom. You’re the truth seeker. I’m just a cop.” After a few speechless moments, Tom said, “I’ve got to check on Florence.”

Three TOM’S day job was selling meat. He serviced restaurants, meat markets, and corner groceries from Pasadena to Santa Monica and south past Anaheim. He drove a 1921 Model T Ford with a tool-shed-sized icebox perched behind the cab. The route paid $38 weekly, more than what the butchers made. Because Tom signed new accounts and customers admired him for having been a USC fullback, even though he’d only lasted two seasons. He’d started with Alamo Meat, six years ago, as a janitor, swabbing the floor, scraping blood and bone scraps off the cutting boards, scouring the knives and cleavers, and airing the place as best he could. The morning after he and his sister escaped from Milly, he’d gone there to give Bud Gallagher the news. He’d known Bud as his dad’s best pal. After Charlie Hickey vanished, when Tom was barely six, Milly set out to find him, carrying baby Florence and dragging Tom. Charlie had worked beside Bud as an Alamo butcher. The rare evenings he arrived home late, Milly accused him of carousing with Gallagher. She raged into Alamo Meat. The way Tom remembered his mother’s assault on Bud, if he hadn’t stood holding a cleaver, Milly might’ve snatched up one of the knives and run him through. Gallagher swore he knew nothing about Charlie’s disappearance. Before Milly gave up, she paused for a dash into the ladies’ room, which gave Bud a chance to wrest Tom’s promise to come to him if troubles got bigger than even a tough little man could handle on his own. A dozen times between Charlie’s disappearance and the escape from Milly, Tom had gone to Alamo Meat. At first he believed he only wanted to visit sights and smells that recalled his father. Later he admitted, only to himself, that Bud gave him strength and fortitude. Like Leo did. They were formidable men. Leo had taught him to box, and to throw, catch and hit a baseball. Bud coached him

to sling a football, one of the skills that earned Tom entrance and a scholarship to USC. Six years ago, Bud convinced the boss to hire the sixteen-year-old. Tom went to work as apprentice to custodian Seymour Asberry, the colored fellow who helped Tom and Florence rent the Jefferson Boulevard flat next door to his own, and whose wife Clara sat with Florence evenings while Tom worked. It was Clara, Tom believed, who convinced Florence her charms would one day fail, but her education wouldn’t. Wild as she had become, she made higher marks than Tom had. Besides his wages, Tom found a measure of peace at Alamo Meat, even during his despair over leaving USC. And while swapping anecdotes and jokes with Bud Gallagher, he often got lifted by a distant hope that some offhand remark would provide the clue that might lead to his father. THE day following his visit to Leo, Tom used his lunchtime to detour off his route. He turned from Hollywood Boulevard onto Ivar, then crawled the truck up the block past the Knickerbocker Hotel, enduring horns and shouts. All the curbside parking was filled. Sidewalk crowds spilled between the parked vehicles and into the street outside the Knickerbocker, a masterpiece of Spanish Colonial and Beaux Arts architecture with its Renaissance Revival Bar, a lair of stars, most notably Rudolph Valentino before his tragic death only two months ago. Tourists and newcomers stood on tiptoes, leaned on cars, or paced up and back, likely awaiting the appearance of Valentino's ghost. According to common rumor, that bold spirit visited frequently. As a native, to make sense of newcomers, Tom grew up sorting them into types. Aside from the few who had found their pot of gold in films or finance, he classed them as: regular folks, lost souls, and crazies. Regular folks had found something here, maybe a tract home with a driveway for their Flivver, or faith in a God, raw food, a rite, or a regimen. Lost

souls roamed the streets, desperately seeking a glimpse of some movie idol or other grand vision that might renew them, and in danger of joining the crazies. As a rule, the crazies were dreamers whose dreams had gotten so viciously trampled all they had left was outraged vanity that sent them on a hunt for revenge. Tom hadn’t come looking for stars, but to chat with Raleigh Washburn, who shined shoes outside the Knickerbocker, remembered the Azusa Street revival as well as anyone, and never wearied of talking about those days. As always, Raleigh looked weary but glad, as if he’d just finished a race. His hands were restless, so his trousers and red and green checked vest bore smudges of brown and black polish. Tom didn’t mention the lynching. He only asked, while Raleigh buffed his brogans, “You remember Frank Gaines, used to preach now and then at the mission?” Raleigh gave him bug eyes, then shook his head and commenced a nervous titter. No doubt he’d read the Forum and wasn’t apt to trust his thoughts to anybody white. Tom, assuming an offhanded manner, shifted the topic to the disappearance and resurrection that, every day since summer, claimed the headlines. “How about Sister Aimee? Do you buy her kidnapping story?” “Hush,” Raleigh said. “That gal been two months out on the town, is all. You know, Tom, ain’t nobody pure holy.” Tom nodded. “Say, you’ve been to any services over at Angelus Temple?” “Yessir. Quite a number of us from the mission find our way to the temple on occasion. Say, Mister Tom, you heard about a lady coming to town, a magician, she claim to be. Going to hold one of them seances, on the night of Halloween, call on poor Mister Rudolph Valentino. Mister Rudolph, he been a generous friend to me. Lady oughtn’t to call on him. Ought to let him rest in peace.” A seance to contact Valentino would collect a sizeable mob, Tom supposed, rich as the city was in suckers. He would’ve bet on Milly’s being part of the mob.

He said, “Raleigh, those Azusa Street folks going to Angelus Temple, how about a few names?” Raleigh supplied a half dozen names, which Tom memorized and jotted down upon his return to the meat wagon. Approaching the intersection of Ivar and Hollywood Boulevard, he pulled over and considered options. He could turn right, go downtown, barge into the police station and demand of whichever cop he encountered an explanation: why no investigation of the Frank Gaines murder. But then he might let slip how he knew they weren't investigating, which would risk big trouble for Leo. He turned left toward Hollywood to deliver a crate of prime filet mignon and ribeye to Musso and Frank's. At the end of the workday, he ran from punching the Alamo time clock to catch the 5:14 red car at Eleventh and Central into downtown. As he descended beneath the Subway Terminal Building to meet the Glendale Boulevard line, he listened to the low, polite voices of colored folks around him. He caught no mention of the lynching, nor any hint of a lead. He noticed more than a few wary glances.

Four MOST of what Tom knew about Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, he had learned from his sister. Whenever Florence came home wearing a dark and petulant expression, instead of tuning her bedroom radio to songs, she tuned to Sister Aimee’s broadcasts. He knew Sister Aimee was decidedly younger and prettier than most evangelists, and that her gospel was gentle, with hardly a taste of the Billy Sunday hellfire. He knew she had arrived in Los Angeles the same year Tom and Florence escaped their mother, after years of road show crusades in tents and rented halls. Still, she often toured the country and Europe, healing, baptizing, and raising loot. Upon returning from her journeys, she got met by larger and louder crowds than did President Coolidge or visiting monarchs. Five months ago yesterday, on May 18, she went swimming at Ocean Park Beach and vanished, presumed drowned. Millions mourned. So when she staggered into Agua Prieta, on the Mexico side of the Arizona border, most of Los Angeles and much of the nation rejoiced, almost as though at the Second Coming of Christ. But District Attorney Asa Keyes and a boss of Leo’s, Herman Cline, Chief of Detectives, didn’t buy her kidnapping story. Now she faced a grand jury inquest. Tom had spent delightful afternoons across the street from Angelus Temple, rowing on Echo Park’s lake. Twice with Florence. Once with a USC coed he entertained thoughts of courting until she balked at the notion of competing for fifth place behind Tom raising his sister, making music, earning a living, and playing college football, He admired the temple, with its round coliseum face and wide beckoning doorways. He had heard about the plush and ornate interior, wondered what magical charms Sister Aimee must wield to enlist the army of devotees and star

chasers who filled the five thousand seats three services daily. He had often thought of going to witness her in action. But he’d yet to venture inside. Even six years after he and Florence escaped, he avoided places that boosted his chances of running into Milly. He turned from Angelus Temple, gazed around the park for the scene of the lynching, and saw what he imagined was the hanging tree. A live oak, squat and broad, its trunk about a foot across, its lowest limb perhaps nine feet above ground. He remembered Frank Gaines as a small man. Around five foot seven. Add to that height some inches of rope above and his feet turned down below. In the picture that came all too clearly, Frank’s toes reached the tips of the highest grass. Tom stared at the hideous image until it faded. Worshippers and tourists poured off buses and trekked across Echo Park from their Chevys and Flivvers, and crowded the sidewalk outside the Temple. Even in October, after three weeks of rain, tourists appeared to outnumber the locals. The tourists shuffled, gawked, and wore summer clothes on the edge of winter. Tonight, though drizzly, felt pleasant compared to the recent stormy weather. Especially the deluge that pounded the rooftops and flooded the streets for three days beginning the day before the lynching. Tom circled the tree. He scuffed his feet through clumps of grass. He scraped the dirt, his eyes keened for any object or morsel the police might’ve overlooked in their haste to cover up. After the ground provided no clues, he looked above. He studied the branches and spotted a line a half-inch wide. Standing on tiptoes, he saw it as a groove, a semi-circle around the high side of the lowest limb, about three feet out from the trunk. A rope burn, he believed. He leaned against the trunk and hoped somebody might notice him there and wander over, feeling the need to talk. An early riser, a day sleeper, or an insomniac. A witness to the lynching of Frank Gaines. Maybe the source of the

Forum report. Although he couldn’t imagine anyone strolling at dawn in a deluge. No one came. The only people who glanced his way were a few women and girls, clearly more interested in him than in the hanging tree. Aside from his large nose, Tom was a handsome fellow. After promising himself to return and canvas the neighborhood, knock on doors until he learned something, he crossed the street. A half-hour before the service, the pedestrians reduced Park Avenue to a single lane. He scanned faces in search of one he knew from Azusa Street fifteen years ago, and pondered: if he saw Milly, should he march over and question her, though she hadn’t been a friend of Frank Gaines. She had claimed Frank was wicked, and warned Tom away from him. But no matter her opinion, or jealousy, she might’ve kept up with his comings and goings. Like veterans of battles, folks who shared common experience as extraordinary as the Azusa Street revival often kept tabs on each other. On the other hand, any contact with Milly was risky. The sight of him could provoke her into a crusade to regain her still underage daughter. Whenever Tom glanced behind him, the crowd appeared to have doubled. He nudged his way around, peering more closely wherever he spotted a dark face. They were plentiful but far from the rule. This was no Azusa Street, where you found more dark folks than pale, and ample shares of the colors people called brown, yellow, and red. Ushers eased open the dozen double doors, in unison. The multitude began lunging into the temple. At the doorway, Tom found himself squared off against an usher inches taller than his six foot one. The fellow appeared to have singled him out. Tom shook the offered hand. The man eyed him head to toe. But this was no admirer. He might’ve been a speakeasy bouncer. A ruddy, clobbered face, flattened nose, scar in place of a cleft on his chin, and squinting right eye. “Welcome,” the bouncer said, in a raw voice and with a thin smile that meant the opposite. Then he turned and walked away.

After the dubious greeting, Tom loitered in the foyer, backed against the interior wall, watching arrivals. He only gave up his post when the bouncer, staring over the crowd, rolled his hand and pointed to the archway that led into the sanctuary. Tom obliged. A woman usher tried to lead him down front. He thanked her, veered off and made his way to the steps. He found a seat midway across the front row of the mezzanine balcony, supposing that vantage offered as strategic a position as any from which to study the crowd. Even before he got settled into the cushioned seat, he spotted the bouncer. Up front. Staring. The fellow mistook him for a reporter or other antagonist, Tom supposed. With the reverend Sister standing accused of perpetrating a fraud most nervy and outlandish, the Temple had plenty reason to station a bouncer at the door. According to the last report Tom read, the prosecutors had exposed as a fraud the mystery woman who claimed she, not Sister Aimee, resided with one Kenneth Ormiston in a Carmel cottage during weeks Aimee claimed the kidnappers held her in Mexico. Tom moved his Stetson fedora, the most expensive piece in his wardrobe, from his head to his lap, and continued to search the multitude for any face that would carry him back to Azusa Street. But once Sister Aimee came swooping down the ramp from the backstage mezzanine, Tom lost sight of all but her. Though the Sister was no beauty queen, she was a looker, even with her thick brown hair coiled into a tight bun and her bosomy contour disguised by a nurse uniform and cape. Her bodily grace was more suited to sport than to dance. Still, she glowed. Not from any visible lighting, but as if she had conjured a way to enshroud herself in moonlight. When Tom had listened to the Temple choir over Florence’s radio, he gave them high marks. He admired old hymns. No matter the lyrics, he could attend to the melodies, harmonies, and arrangements. Gifted vocalists of all sorts, unless they went too operatic, could make him shiver ear-to-ear. Most any rhythm set

his feet and fingers tapping. The temple’s drummer, Sister had lured away from the Pantages Theater. But tonight, no choir, no orchestra. Sister Aimee glided to stand beside the grand piano. A pianist in tails and top hat strolled out from behind a trio of potted palms. His trousers hadn’t yet touched the bench when he commenced a two-barre lead-in. The preacher opened wide her long, graceful arms and crooned: “If I have wounded any soul today, If I have caused one foot to go astray, If I have walked in my own willful way, Dear Lord, forgive! If I have been perverse or hard, or cold, If I have longed for shelter in Thy fold, When Thou hast given me some fort to hold, Dear Lord, forgive!” Her vibrant contralto delivered the lyrics with such passion, they convinced Tom she meant them. She might be nuts or a swindler but, at least while she sang that number, she believed. He felt eyes on him. He crooked his head around and found himself gazing into the watery dark eyes of a woman whose hands reached for the sky. Her bony arms quivered. Her tongue lolled back and forth. Once Sister launched her sermon, as soon as Tom heard the word mother, he wanted to run. She was telling a story of an old widow who lamented that she hadn’t spent a life winning souls, and of a friend who reminded the widow that her sons were missionaries, in China and Africa. Sister would speak a few sentences, then repeat a line and pause for shouted amens and hallelujahs, which often came joined by white hankies waving. The woman behind Tom bellowed her amens so loud and jerked her uplifted arms with such fervor, and jumped up and down so often, Tom expected her to break into a babbling tongue.

The widow in Sister Aimee's tale had born and raised, along with the missionaries, a younger son. Sister went to her knees, acting his part. “Mother,” she vowed, “I am never going to leave our little home with the roses climbing over it until the day the Lord has taken you up to heaven. I am going to stay here and look after you, Mother.” Tom could listen no more. Instead he peered below, searching the pews for an even vaguely familiar face. Moments after Sister concluded the sermon and opened the service to vociferous communal prayer, Tom heard his name called out. He turned and saw the woman of the loud amens flash him a grin. A sizeable number of folks stood and pardoned their way to the aisles and fled. Probably tourists who’d had as large a helping of Pentecostal fervor as their schedules or psyches allowed. Tom sat crooked half around, waiting for the amen woman to make her move. When she stood, so did he. On the Park Avenue sidewalk, he found her waiting, leaning on the fence outside the parsonage. She was short and bone-thin, with knobby shoulders and a milk chocolate face. She looked young enough so she might’ve been one of the Azusa Street children. Out here, she acted timid. “You Tommy?” “Tom Hickey.” “I know Hickey. I remember your mama. And a baby girl.” “Florence,” he said. “Your name?” “Mavis.” “How about Frank Gaines?” Tom said. “You remember Frank?” Her head began wagging. “No sir. I don’t know a soul called Frank. No, I surely don’t.” She too had read the Forum. Rather than call her a liar, he asked, “How about other folks from the mission. Do you keep up with any of them?” Her eyes brightened, and she reeled off a few names Tom didn’t recall. But

when she named Emma Gordon, he said, “Hold it, please. Does Miz Gordon come here?” “Here to the Temple. No sir.” “You know where she lives?” “I surely don’t. But I believes she works at a laundry. In Chinatown. Ho Ling be the Chinaman’s name.” A lanky dark fellow wearing a derby came stalking at them across Park Avenue. A fist swung at his right side as though preparing for action, maybe clutching a sap. “Well now,” Mavis said, “here come my ride. Lord bless you, Tom Hickey.” She clutched the man’s hanging arm and hustled him away, no doubt explaining her acquaintance with the husky blond boy. Across the park, a streetcar bell clanged. Tom might’ve caught it, but he couldn’t quite make himself run, so absorbed was he with thoughts of Emma Gordon. In a recurring childhood daydream, he got rescued away from Milly, who had stolen him from his real mother who looked like Emma with her angel smiles. Emma with the gleaming eyes he saw when the dirt floor and the walls of the mission shook and all around him folks thrashed, teetered and toppled, rolled on the ground, wept, and sang or hollered in fits of ecstasy, and Emma came running to scoop him up and deliver him out of there, out to the patch of lawn where she often rocked him in her strong arms and sang a tender hymn. He hadn’t seen her since Azusa Street. Once Milly changed her beliefs, anyone who didn’t change with her became a pariah. By now Emma must be seventy-some, Tom estimated. He imagined her plump as ever and with skin like velvet except on her hands. She would wear a dark cotton dress that smelled of lye soap and a modest hat with a flower on the side or no hat and the flower bobby-pinned into her stiff, shiny hair. He ambled across the street, went to the hanging tree, and stood beneath the rope-gouged limb remembering Frank Gaines’ ice-white eyes and crooked

mouth that always looked primed to boom a laugh. In the mission, while others sang and shouted, Frank often whooped what they called holy laughter. Holy or not, Tom believed the laughter came from Frank’s heart. Most anything could make Frank glad. Tom remembered him telling someone he came looking for God because he needed somebody to thank. When Tom heard the next streetcar one stop away, he gave up his reveries. He was rounding the east end of the lake, passing a gaggle of ravenous ducks, geese, and mud hens, when he noticed the temple bouncer squeezing himself into the driver’s seat of a Nash sedan parked at the curb across Glendale Boulevard. Tom made a dash to the streetcar, hopped on, and pardoned his way into a seat on the right side of the aisle, across from a couple he had seen going into the service. The man, though he wasn’t a dwarf, could slouch and pass for one. His woman might’ve played tackle for the Cardinals. Before the service, from their sheepish and hungry stares, he would’ve bet they were lost souls. Now, they held hands, and their eyes appeared moist with gratitude. As the trolley pulled out, so did the Nash. When the streetcar stopped at First Street, Tom watched the Nash pull over behind. Again, at the Beverly Boulevard stop, the Nash pulled to the curb. Neither of its doors opened. Tom wasn’t about to lead the man to his court on Virgil Street. So far as he could, he kept his home a secret, on account of the unpredictable Milly. Besides, most of the USC football team, whom he wasn’t inclined to trust around women, had met his gorgeous sister. After transferring at the end of the Wilshire line, he kept the Nash headlights in view while he rode the bus to La Brea, a few short blocks from Leo’s. Running from trouble wasn’t Tom’s style. Besides, no matter how fast he could run, he wasn’t going to lose the tail unless he scaled fences and cut through a yard or two. Instead, he strolled the blocks, then climbed to Leo’s porch. He stood beside the front door under the porch light, and watched. The Nash rounded a corner then sped up. As it passed, Tom smiled. He

imagined the bouncer would return tomorrow to Leo's home, maybe accompanied by some Rasputin elder come to uncover Tom’s sinister motives for spying at Angelus Temple. And he would find himself facing off against an LAPD detective.

Five THE Nash turned the corner. Tom stood and watched the neighborhood long enough to decide the bouncer didn’t intend to round the block and park for a stake out. He was about to knock when the door swung open. Leo filled the doorway. “Bed time,” he grumbled. The whites of his eyes were flamingo pink. He slumped sideways to lean against the door jamb. His vest was unbuttoned. His tie, which sported a hand- painted cluster of purple fruit, hung loose to one side. Tom pointed to the cut- glass tumbler he held partly hidden by the wrinkled shirttail outside his trousers. “Nightcap?” “What of it?” “You want to stand aside and let me in, I’ll tell you what.” Leo backed a step. “Don’t bother telling me what I already know.” Tom entered and shut the door behind him. He followed Leo into the kitchen. “Just what do you know?” “Where you’ve been. What’s going to happen next, provided you don’t change your ways. You old enough to drink yet?” “Would be,” Tom said, “if I lived where drinking was legal. Anyway, I’m not drinking tonight.” The last thing Tom needed was to bedevil his already flummoxed mind. He returned to the parlor and flopped onto the sofa, trying to guess what Leo knowing his movements could mean. If police had reported to Leo about Tom's visit to Angelus Temple, then Leo had reported his intention of going there. Which meant the bouncer and tail, the Nash driver, could be police. When Leo appeared, he was clutching the tumbler in both hands. He sank into his easy chair. Tom asked, “Where was it I’ve been?”

“Getting religion.” “Okay, and the guy following me is?” Leo raised his tumbler as if for a toast and drank it halfway down. “Level with me,” Tom said. “Are you sitting this game out, like you said, or playing for the Two Gun Davis team, say filling them in on my plans?” He waited for a reply. Leo only sipped his medicine. On the wall above Leo hung a Charles Fries painting of an oak grove and clouds, the centerpiece of Vi’s California Plein Air collection. The most gnarled oak reminded Tom of the hanging tree. His blood heated and rose to his head. “You think I’m some loose cannon, needs police protection?” Leo made a pfft sound. “I think you’re a kid who’s got plenty to learn before he ought to take on the big boys. You say there’s a hush on the newspapers, radio. Meaning the stakes are this high.” He lifted his hand all the way. “Month or so back, Wobblies hold a meet up in Long Beach to gripe about the way labor gets treated by the oilmen and shipbuilders. A gang of citizens crash the party, a half dozen Wobblies come out as stiffs, and plenty more on stretchers.” “You telling me the cover up’s about politics?” “Sure, could be, but what I’m telling you is, the citizens that crashed the Commie party, I know a couple of them, and I know they’ve got their eye on you.” “Cops?” “Maybe.” “How about giving me their names.” Leo only scowled. “Any of your cop pals also Klan?” “Watch it, Tom.” “Say, Davis himself could be — what do they call the Klan boss — the dragon? How about that? Suppose he heard some brethren of his got too zealous, so he issued a hush on the story.”

Leo appeared to consider before he said, “If the Chief had a way to keep the news hounds hushed, I’d hear about it. Now, for the last time, lay off.” “You think I ought to let some goons get away with murdering a pal of mine?” “I’m saying you’ve got a future. So does Florence. Where would she be without you?” “I’ll watch my step.” “You do that.” Leo heaved to his feet, set his drink on the chess table and tucked in his shirttails. He plucked his bowler hat off the rack, shuffled to the front door and threw it open. “I’ll run you home.” “You might want to tell Vi? In case she wakes up.” “Gone to her sister’s.” Leo’s dour look broke through Tom’s annoyance. In a softened voice, he asked, “Want to tell me about it?” “About what?” “Vi gone to her sisters.” “Not on your life.” Leo threw back his shoulders, marched across the porch, down the steps, and along the path to his garage. Backing his Chrysler roadster out of the garage, he missed the driveway and uprooted a trellis draped in bougainvillea. Before Tom hopped in, he offered to drive. Leo snorted. Thereafter, Tom kept his mind off the car’s slight but constant weaving by keeping watch. He saw one tan Nash stopped at the intersection of Wilshire and Van Ness. As they passed, no matter how hard he peered, the driver looked like a shadow. The Nash swung a left and headed west, away from them, on Western. The running board of Leo’s roadster scraped the curb of Virgil Street in front of Cactus Court, where Tom rented the rear faux-adobe cottage on the east side. He had one foot outside when Leo said, “Get yourself a weapon. A sap, a length of pipe. Something that’ll knock 'em out. And keep it handy.” “Knock who out?”

Leo yanked the steering wheel away from the curb. “If you knew how to use a gat, and if I didn’t figure any shooting would sure get you hanged, I’d lend you one of mine.” “So it’s cops,” Tom said. Leo grabbed the handle, slammed the door, pulled away, swung a wide turn, and weaved down Fourth beneath the hill of Moorish villas.

Six ROGER Villegas owned Cactus Court, which he called the final remnant of his heritage as the descendant of Spanish land grant nobility. Last summer, following the heat-wave massacre of the grass that bordered the walkway between the two rows of cottages, he planted more cactus. Tom had twice since gotten attacked by the jumping cholla. When the evil plant stabbed Florence, Tom complained. Villegas only chuckled. “Tell her to start wearing denim in place of those long bare legs.” Tom had learned, no matter how tired, distracted, or agitated, to concentrate on his steps when arriving home. Besides, he had Frank Gaines, Emma Gordon, Leo’s betrayal, and the infamous LAPD crowding his mind. So he didn’t notice that his cottage was dark until he reached the door. Florence never slept without the light on in the hall between her bedroom and Tom’s. The cottage door was locked. He used his key. But just as he laid his hand on the knob, he got spooked by a thought Leo’s warning must’ve prompted. He pictured the bouncer and another Palooka on the couch, with Florence gagged and squeezed between them. He needed a pistol. Shooting couldn’t be hard to learn. A sap wouldn’t take out a guy across the room. He backed off the porch and picked up an egg-shaped stone. He turned the knob with his left hand, kept the stone in his right at ready, and used his foot to ease the door open. Nobody on the couch. All he heard was cicadas and a scratchy phono at least two cottages away. Al Jolson singing “Mammy,” a number Tom detested. He preferred dog-howling to Jolson. He flipped on lights, peered around the parlor, then into the kitchen, and then each of the other three cramped rooms. For a minute, he sat on the edge of his

bed and kicked air. From now on, he vowed, wherever he went after dark, Florence went with him. He rushed out, avoided the chollas, turned left onto the sidewalk and double- timed to Vermont and on to Third Avenue. He hustled past the bakery, hardware, boot and saddle shop, and newsstand to the old livery stable. Max Van Dam had deodorized the place, touched it up with a smattering of chrome and neon, and christened it the Top Hat Ballroom. Tom knew the colored doorman. This wasn’t the first time he’d come to fetch his sister. He gave old Mister Hines the fifty-cent admission plus a dime tip. “Florence here?” The doorman leaned close and confided, “Lest she done slipped out while I gone to use the gents’.” Inside, a lifeless trio fronted by a bald, toothy fellow mangled “Bye Bye Blackbird.” Tom passed through the ballroom without much bothering to look for his sister in the smoky blue glow. The gals ranged from too young to Tom’s mother’s age and beyond. Those who danced downstairs for a nickel couldn’t play in the same league as Florence, no matter how brazen, glittery, or painted they made themselves. Upstairs, she could earn a quarter a dance. At the foot of the staircase that led to the liquor and quarter-a-dance girls, Tom nodded at the tiny sentry who called himself Abe since some wag told him he resembled the president. His uniform was stovepipe trousers, a sky-blue double-breasted jacket, and a high-top-hat. He said, “I told her what you think about her coming here.” “And she said?” “She said, ‘My brother changed his mind, with rent coming due and all.’ Then she gave me that baby doll look. You know, I’m a sucker for the Janes.” Tom emphatically shook his head. “When I change my mind I’ll come tell you.” Little Abe saluted.

The combo upstairs, livelier than the trio, commenced the second verse of “I Cried for You” just as Tom spotted his sister. She wasn’t hard to spot. Even the waist-denying sequined flapper costume couldn’t hide the hourglass shape. One of her long, white-as-cotton arms draped around the neck of a fellow whose high-cuffed slacks, eager eyes, and cowlick notified Tom he was a tourist. Tom approached his sister expecting to be greeted by her on-the-town scent, as if she had bathed in gardenia water. But as she turned and exclaimed, “Phooey,” he caught a whiff of grenadine, Florence’s remedy for the acrid taste of Top Hat gin. The tourist stiffened and opened wide his mouth as if to object to Tom’s cutting in. But after his eyes met his rival’s, he turned to chewing on his lip and stuffing his hands into his woolen coat pockets. Florence cocked her head and reached for her brother’s shoulder. “Aw, Tommy, I’m just getting started. It’s early.” “Yeah.” He grasped the hand, lifted it off his shoulder, and pulled her to his side. “A few years too early.” She went along without a fuss, but smiled or winked at every man along the way. On the sidewalk, she stopped to pluck a Chesterfield out of her beaded purse and torch it with one of the new lighter gadgets that would’ve cost Tom most of a day’s wages. She strode ahead of him. He let her go, but quickened his step to keep within a few yards. Even in her fury, she walked in the way that made her hips sway and roll and made Tom regret he hadn’t long ago moved the two of them out of the city to a place where men don't dance and fashion means a pinafore. Just last week, one of the boys brought to rehearsal an article from Collier’s. Los Angeles, the writer proclaimed, offered more than just sunshine and surf. It also led the nation in suicides, embezzlements, bank robberies, drug addicts, drunks, and murdered or murderous celebrities. Rex, the piano man, suggested a slogan the developers and boosters might use. “Come to the Promised Land, a dandy place to die.”

At the cottage, Florence used her key and stomped inside then threw the door back at him. He caught it, entered and locked the door while she kicked off her high-heeled pumps and turned on him, her blue eyes gone fiery green. “What in the devil do you want with me, Tom? I’m a big girl, can’t you see?” She wiggled and posed to prove it. “I’ve got my own mind and my own ways and you’re not my daddy.” Then she hollered, “Damn you, damn you, damn you.” The sight made Tom queasy. He thought, it’s Milly inside her, and caught hold of her shoulders. She punched him in the belly. He pushed her to arm’s length and held on while she flailed and kicked at his shins with such abandon she would’ve fallen if he hadn’t caught her by one of the thin straps looped over her bare shoulders. The strap tore. She stopped still. As he let her go, she back-stepped, then collapsed onto the sofa. “My dress,” she moaned, staring at her brother with bulging eyes, as if he were a brute who attacked her. Then her hands flew to cover her face. She wept, and Tom stood wanting to hold her but judging she wouldn’t allow it. For a minute, the weight of raising Florence nearly brought him to his knees. He knew nothing about what a parent should do with a girl too smart, too pretty, and too wild at heart. Maybe, if he found her a daytime job, if she finished high school at nights like he had, that would keep her out of the speakeasies. Maybe he led her astray by giving her too much freedom. As her weeping faded, she brought her hands from her face to her lap. “Babe,” Tom said, softly as he could manage, “damn me all you want, I’m not going to stand by and let you swill gin and go cheek-to-cheek with every rube that can raise a quarter.” “That so?” “It is.” “Then I guess you’ll be giving up the band, coming home nights to play Chinese checkers with me.”

“First, how about we talk things over?” “Nothing to talk about, Tom. I’m me. You’re you. You don’t like living with Milly, you go it on your own. I don’t like what you want for me. So I do things my way.” “What do I want for you, Florence?” “You want me to be a wallflower that cooks now and then, and cleans up after herself, anyway. A kid that looks to her big brother for all the answers. About right?” He could think of no good answer, and she had him doubting his own motives. “Maybe I should call Milly,” he said. “Tell her to come and get you.” Florence appeared to shudder. She crossed her arms over her breasts. Then she cocked her head and stared while shaping a coquettish smile. “You won’t send me to Milly.” “You sound mighty sure.” “I’m sure,” she said. “You love me too much.”

Seven TOM meant to wake up in darkness, but he miscalculated. The sky was beginning to gray when he hopped onto the streetcar at Wilshire and Vermont. The car was at least half-full. Aside from a couple up front whom Tom counted as lost souls, probably insomniacs, the riders were laborers. Brown cleaning women, Japanese gardeners, white and Mexican men of the building trades. When Tom was a small boy, morning and evening riders wore ties, suits, and shirts crisp from the cleaners. He arrived at Echo Park before the sun topped Angelino Heights. The park looked imbedded in a salty mist that so far held back the daylight. Since lanterns above the temple entrances were on, meaning they burned all night, he couldn’t imagine the killers parking near the tree. Neither would they have parked on Glendale Boulevard with its streetlamps. Which meant they must’ve dragged Frank from the unlit narrow road at the foot of Angelino Heights. That stormy night, anyone who saw would’ve been a resident of one of the cottages low on the hillside, or looking from Angelus Temple. From the sidewalk of Glendale Boulevard, Tom rounded the temple, peering through glass doors into the foyer, then darting glances he hoped looked innocent at the parsonage windows and balconies. As he began to cross the path that ran between the temple and the Bible school, he encountered a fellow wearing overalls and carrying a lunch pail. He put on a friendly expression. “Morning.” The fellow made a weary attempt at a smile. He didn’t look much older than Tom, though rimless spectacles, handlebar mustache, and a decided paunch aged him. “You work for Sister?” “Yep.” “Night shift, huh?”

“Custodian, after service till six a.m., provided I get the place spotless by then.” “Work Sunday nights, do you?” “Listen, Bub, I don’t catch the six-twenty, I’m liable to fall asleep on the bench. Adiós.” “Mind if I tag along?” “Suit yourself.” Tom kept abreast of the custodian’s long strides, wishing he had read a book, or taken lessons from Leo, on tricks to use when interrogating. “A week ago Monday, during the deluge, did you see a fellow hanging from the big oak?” Without breaking stride, the man said, “Hanging, you say?” “By a rope around his neck.” “That’s a hell of a question.” “Got an answer?” “Ask me something doesn’t sound like it came from a guy smoking loco weed, you’ll get your answer.” “Try this. A week ago Monday, did you see any cops in the park right around dawn?” “Didn’t see a soul. Then again, I don’t go looking for trouble. And rain like that might please the ducks. But me, I care to go swimming, I go to the beach.” A streetcar bell clanged. The man gave Tom a steady look. He was either on the square or an accomplished liar. He tipped his flat cap and set out jogging toward Glendale Boulevard. Tom crossed the street and walked into the park. He hadn’t gone twenty steps toward Angelino Heights when something zinged past the right side of his head, loud enough so it set his ear buzzing. It thunked into the hanging tree. He dropped to his belly, crawled to a nearby shrub, and peered around the edge. When he spotted something blue halfway up Angelino Heights and moving higher, he bolted from cover and dashed forty yards to the wide trunk of a willow. Since no more shots had sounded, he only stopped for a breath. Then

he sprinted out of the park, across the road, and ducked behind a delivery wagon parked at the base of the hill. A strip of vacant lots zigzagged up the slope. Pepper trees, elms, and a pile of rubbish offered him cover. The higher he climbed, the less his hope of catching the shooter. But on a wide ledge, as he passed the remains of an outhouse, he noticed something through a crack in the wall. An ankle and black boot. As a fullback he’d learned to cram fear into his belly and not let it out until the whistle blew. So he tested that skill, and rushed around the wall. A well-freckled boy, about ten years old, with buzzed reddish hair, squatted there, gaping up at him. A small lever-action rifle lay at his side. His hand rested on the stock. Tom kicked the gun away at the same time he lunged and grabbed the collar of the work shirt that must’ve belonged to the kid’s big brother. He lifted the boy to eye level. “Were you shooting at me?” “Cripes no,” the boy yelped. “I wouldn’t shoot at nobody. Only at rabbits. Maybe a crow now and then.” Tom used his free hand to point down the hill. “Which of those houses do you live in?” “Hey, Mister, don’t go snitch on me.” “Why shouldn’t I?” “See, a cop put me up to it. Let me down, I’ll tell you.” Tom obliged. The boy said, “I was after a jackrabbit when this big guy, taller than you even, he comes out of nowhere, scares the piss out of me.” “Uniform?” Tom asked. “Nope. But he shows me this badge. Then he says, ‘See that fat tree? When I give you the nod, take a shot. You hit it, I let you be. You miss, I’m running you in.’ I say, ‘What the hell you want me to shoot an old tree for?’ He says, ‘To put a fright in a bum who’s been stalking around the temple, giving a headache to Sister.’ I say, ‘Why don’t you go pinch him?’ He says, ‘Shut up, here he comes, now’s your chance.’”

Since Leo had clued him to the danger from cops, Tom bought the story. He wondered if the cop hoped the shot would go astray and rid the city of a problem. “This tall fella have a squint eye?” The boy shrugged. Tom pointed to his chin. “A scar right here?” “Couldn’t tell you.” “He wear a homburg?” “You got that part right.” “Here’s our deal,” Tom said. “Either you're going to do me a favor or I’m coming back to find and wallop you before I snitch to your folks, got it?” The kid nodded. Tom jotted the Villegas phone number on his note pad, ripped off the sheet and passed it to the kid. He nodded toward the hillside lane. “Go to every house, ask if anybody saw a man hanging from that tree.\" He pointed. “Would be a week ago Monday. Or if they saw cops in the park around dawn that same day. Would’ve been early morning during the hard rain. Somebody says yes, make sure they call this number, leave a message for Tom Hickey.” “That your name, Hickey?” “What of it?” “Nothing,” the boy muttered. “I’m with you.”

Eight TOM felt crooked for stealing work hours to run errands that, on top of being personal business, put him behind schedule on his route. He promised himself only to stop for a minute at Emma Gordon's, long enough to say he had missed her all these years and ask if they could meet around suppertime. Or to leave a note to that effect. Ho Ling had told him where to find her. On East Seventh Street. The neighborhood featured burnt orange lawns, wilting trees, and parched houses, as if a fire only singed while passing through. Tom thought he smelled a dairy, though he didn’t spot any cows. Emma’s address lay between a truck farm, where cabbage and winter greens and plump tomatoes flourished, and what looked like a junkyard conceived by a mad or whimsical artist. Stacks of tires rose into a pyramid, and several cars stood half-planted with their noses in the air. Now that the mist had blown away, the hottest day in weeks was upon them. With a cloudless sky, the sun at its zenith, folks walking or tending their gardens moved like sloths. Most of them shaded their eyes. He spotted Emma on the porch of a place that could’ve been two shacks jammed together to form an ell. Beside the house was the boarded-over, crumbling foundation of a larger structure. Emma sat with legs parted, elbows on her knees, using a folded section of newspaper to fan her glistening face. She stared, her mouth crinkled and her eyes full-rounded, as if studying something that puzzled her. The sight of a delivery truck stopping in front of her house didn’t alter her expression. Neither did the strange white man hopping out of the truck and striding toward her. Maybe she couldn’t see well enough to notice details. Or maybe she had seen so much, nothing surprised her anymore.

Tom stopped at the foot of her porch. “Miz Gordon,” he said. “I’m Tom Hickey.” Now her eyes shut, her mouth fell wide open and something between a whoop and a wheeze issued out of her. She dropped the newspaper, heaved to her feet and clapped. “Lord, this most surely is my Tommy.” He climbed the two steps, wrapped her in his arms, and held on until she said, “Now boy, don’t you be squeezing the life out of me.” In her presence, Tom noticed changes in the muscles of his shoulders and neck, their tautness giving way. He felt himself breathing deeper, like folks who climb out of the car during a Sunday drive into the country. Being with Emma felt like coming to a home he had never known but always longed for. For a half hour or more, Tom listened to stories about how Robert, her late husband, lost his job as a stevedore when the war ended, and how the killer flu the doughboys brought home convinced them Texas was safer. Besides, they had a son down in Paris, who carried on about how the town was pretty as its namesake and friendly to colored folks. But she found it neither pretty nor friendly, and when Robert died, their son moved to Chicago for decent wages, and took her grandbabies with him. Then she chose to come back west, be near her sister and what dear friends hadn’t yet passed. They talked in the kitchen, while Emma squeezed lemons into a pitcher, hacked chips off the block in the icebox, and added the water and sugar. Back on the porch, Tom confessed his abduction of Florence from Milly. Emma said, “Wooee, you some nervy boy.” “Our mama was acting crazy.” “Your mama got a troubled soul, Tommy. Yes she does.” “Say, Miz Gordon, I’ll bet you remember Frank Gaines.” Her soft face petrified. “Why you ask?” He wouldn’t make himself use the word lynched. “Did you know Frank got murdered, a week ago Monday?” Folks as good as Emma shouldn’t bother trying to lie, Tom thought. The way

she shook her head, she might’ve been watching a pendulum. Then her eyes shot venom at Tom’s. “Who done it, boy?” she demanded. Tom shrugged and accepted a portion of disgrace, just for being white. “I’m looking into it.” “Why you lookin’ in? You police?” He told her about the broadside, and the cover up. All of which he supposed she already knew. He didn’t mention Leo. While they let a silent minute pass, Emma rocked sideways. Maybe she was praying. Tom imagined soon she might break into a chorus of supplication in words that sounded like Chinese or Swahili. He asked, “Want to tell me all you know about Frank?” “Yes, I surely do.” From the way she talked, she might not have seen Brother Gaines since the old days on Azusa Street. She portrayed Frank as Tom remembered him, always the gentleman, the one who could take the unruly outside without breaking their spirits and, after some prayer, send them on their way feeling delivered. Brother Gaines, she recalled, always had a dollar to pass along to them who needed one. “Brother Gaines and Brother Seymour, twins they could be. Brother Seymour, you don’t s’pose they murdered him too?” William Seymour was the pastor who founded the Azusa Street mission, and the visionary of the worldwide movement it inspired. Tom had read of his death, three or four years ago. Reported as heart failure. “They?” “Same as killed Brother Gaines, boy.” Her head wagged as if from a spasm. “Thing is, Brother Seymour, he be inviting everybody in, like Jesus his self, Tommy, he don’t pay any mind what color. Like the good Lord, he say, come unto me and I am goin’ give you my spirit. Jesus say that. And Brother Seymour, just like Jesus. God surely blessed that man, Tommy, the work of his hands, because that man didn’t hate nobody but loved us all.” “Frank was that good?” “Like they was twins.”

“Who’d kill somebody like that?” “Many folks have troubled souls, Tommy.” Tom nodded and moved the Stetson from his lap to the porch rail. “You’ve seen Frank since you got back from Texas?” “No sir, I have not.” “Hear any mention of him?” “Just he took up with a white gal came around to the mission. Name of Harriet.” She chewed at a hangnail and sifted through her memory. “A married lady, I do believe.” Tom wanted to sit all day and evening with Emma, watch the sunset and working folks on their way home, find some memories or stories they could laugh together about. But if he didn’t hustle back to his route this minute, he couldn’t make his deliveries, drop off the truck, and arrive on time for rehearsal. As he stood and donned his hat, he noticed Emma deep in thought. “Something else? About Frank?” “Now Tommy.” She spoke hardly louder than a whisper. “This be gossip. Ladies telling tales. You hear?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Lady say Frank got himself mixed up with some of those bootleggers.” “Which lady?” Emma lied again. “I surely don’t recall.”

Nine THE band used to feature twenty musicians before Gary McClellan, the leader, ran off with Adelita, the singer. Tom convinced eleven to stay. He renamed the band “Ernestine's Boys.” Banjo, string bass, and drums in rhythm. Piano, five- piece horn section, himself on clarinet, and Ernestine of the mighty pipes. For giving the singer top billing, the jokers among them accused him of having eyes for Ernestine. Oz, being Ernestine’s man, didn’t care for the joke. He kept aloof, on the lookout for evidence. So Tom decided, if Oz showed up late or tooted some notes that soured the arrangement, he had better go easy on the nagging. Otherwise, Oz might see Tom’s words as a move to knock him down a peg, a play to make points with Ernestine. Tonight, Tom’s ambitions were small. A few numbers had given them fits. “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” wouldn’t wrap around the jerky rhythm Omar on banjo wanted to give it. And the horn section couldn’t agree on harmony. McClellan had left Tom most of the band’s arrangements. Boys in the band provided others. But he needed to adapt every arrangement to his personnel. Which often kept him awake long into the night. He tried to turn his mind to the music. But Frank Gaines haunted him, as did the fact that he had run so late on the route some afternoon customers bawled him out. At his last stop, Merlin’s Grocery in Burbank, he got told if he wanted to keep the account, be back with a fresh cut side of beef first thing tomorrow. To cap the reproach, Merlin failed to hand over the usual sandwich Tom counted on as his Wednesday supper. Before he attempted to rustle the boys into making like an orchestra, he rapped his baton on the wall until they paused their chatter. “That broadside Oz passed around last time, about the lynching. Anybody knew Frank, what he was up to, who had it in for him, any old thing like that, let’s hear it.”

Besides Oz and Ernestine, only Samuel, first trombone, was colored. Samuel gave him a look Tom supposed meant whatever he knew or didn’t, he didn’t mean to tell any white man. The others turned back to gabbing and fussing. Tom shooed them into place. They were halfway through the first rough cut of “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” when Oz and Ernestine strolled in. Tom continued mouthing and muttering the lyric while the band completed the run-through and the singer stood beside her man while he unpacked his gear. When they joined in, Tom asked the horns to try backing the vocal with the melody line, on the chorus. After one middling attempt, he passed the baton to Rex, the pianist, and asked him to take over. He motioned for Oz to join him, away from the others. Oz came, hands out, palms up, his face asking, What in the world? “Don’t talk to me, boss. It’s the Mick can’t carry a tune.” “Sounded swell,” Tom said. “What’s the latest on Frank Gaines?” “Latest, you say? Latest is, we all waiting for the next one of us to swing from a tree. That’s all. Latest,” he sneered. “What, you expecting Bill Pickett goin’ ride in and lasso the Grand Dragon?” Pickett was a colored Hollywood cowboy and rodeo star. “Say, whose side you s’pose Tom Mix be on?” “You know for a fact it was the Klan?” Tom asked. “I don’t know but what I read. Same as you. Who you think?” “I want to talk to the guy who wrote about it. You know the publisher?” Tom winced at the sudden recognition that his asking for the publisher might prompt Oz to suspect him of ties to the Klan, who might reward whoever handed over the journalist crusader. But Oz looked simply curious. “What you want to know him for?” “Frank and I go way back,” Tom said. “He was the fellow bouncing me on his knee while the congregation howled to the Lord, down at the mission on Azusa Street.” Oz shook his head and a grin broke out. “You been a holy roller.” “My mama was for a time,” Tom said.

Oz looked over at Ernestine and waved, probably to clue her not to fret about a clash between her man and the bandleader. “I don’t know about this publisher. But I know somebody might know.” After rehearsal and a streetcar ride, Tom jogged the two blocks from Wilshire Boulevard to Cactus Court. He ran past the jumping cholla. The reunion with Emma had charged him with optimism. On his own, without Leo’s help, he might gather enough truth to persuade a certain USC politics prof and football fan to introduce him to some assistant district attorney like Joseph Ryan, the young intern who had set out to bring Sister Aimee to her knees. An ambitious crusader like Ryan might just risk his neck and career to break the silence and win a cache of political spoils. No lights shone in the cottage. Tom opened the door and called for Florence. No answer. He went to her room and peeked in. Her bed was made and the quilt pulled tight. Her school uniform lay in a heap. No mess in the kitchen. He surmised she came home and left in a hurry, before dark. He locked the cottage and strode up the path and along the sidewalks of Virgil Street, Vermont Avenue, and Third Street to the Top Hat. Mister Hines might’ve been waiting for him, the way he spotted Tom from a distance and wagged his creaky head. As Tom neared, he said, “She already gone.” “When’d she leave?” “An hour, maybe two.” “Anybody with her.” “Yessir. She gone off with a Mexican fella.” He pointed east. “You know him?” “Can’t say I do.” Tom imagined he knew where to find her, a quarter mile up and across Third, in a juice joint alongside which goings on at the Top Hat were a temperance league social. As far as Tom knew, the joint didn’t have a name. The storefront was a magazine and cigar stand. The speakeasy was deeper into the building, behind

wall or two. To reach the action, folks came around back, up the alley, and entered from the loading dock. Tom knew how the establishment operated. Earl, his first trombonist, made book for Charlie Crawford’s mob, which ran the joint’s betting games. The doorkeeper looked like a German foot soldier who lost his pride along with the war. He squatted on the dock in front of the loading doors, yards away from the speakeasy entrance. Tom approached and mentioned Earl. The fellow stood, shuffled to the door, rapped twice then gave a soft kick. The door slid open. Smoke billowed out. As soon as Tom stepped inside, a portly bar maid in a flouncy blouse and knickers approached. She shouted to make herself heard over the bawdy laughter, curses, and disputes. “What are you drinking, lover boy?” Meaning did he take his gin straight or with tonic water. He yelled, “Nothing tonight. Tonight I’m looking for my little sister.” He was about to describe Florence when the bar maid pointed with her chin. “Only one here got your looks, darling. But she ain’t so little.” Now that his eyes had adjusted, he saw Florence’s blond curls and curvy torso in a glittering dress with bangles at the hem and a silver belt tight around her tiny waist. She was in the third standing row that encircled a roped-off square, which would’ve better served cockfights or dog fights but tonight featured a pair of wiry colored boxers. They danced around the ring, glaring at each other while flexing their arms and shoulders and kneading the air with bare hands. Shifty characters snaked through the crowd, collecting bets. Florence hung on the arm of a hatless fellow with thick, oily hair and cheeks either sunburnt or rouged. Mister Hines had called him Mexican. When Tom reached his sister, she had her lips close to the man’s ear. Tom attempted to eavesdrop but couldn’t hear over the racket. From behind, he placed his hands on the sides of her waist. She whirled in his direction just far enough to recognize and hiss at him. Still she let go of the Mexican. Tom pulled her to his side and guided her to the door. The Mexican followed.